Henry Hudson, English navigator, made four important voyages to find a passage to China by the northeast or northwest route; it was on the third venture undertaken at the instance of the Dutch East India Co., that he found the Hudson, probably a greater discovery than the one he undertook to make. With a mixed crew of 18 or 20 men he started on his voyage in the "Half Moon," April 6, 1609, and soon was among the ice towards the northern part of Barents Sea. His men mutinied and he was forced to seek the passage farther south. Thus eventually he entered the fine bay of what is now N.Y. harbour, Sept. 3, 1609. John Fiske says: "In all that he attempted he failed, and yet he achieved great results that were not contemplated in his schemes. He started two immense industries, the Spitzbergen whale fisheries and the Hudson Bay fur trade; and he brought the Dutch to Manhattan Island. No realization of his dreams could have approached the astonishing reality which would have greeted him could he have looked through the coming centuries and caught a glimpse of what the voyager now beholds in sailing up the bay of New York." The Dutch called the Hudson the North River (a name which is still used) in contra-distinction to the Delaware which they called the South River. The lower Hudson is really a fiord--a river valley into which ocean water has been admitted by the sinking of the land, transforming a large part of the valley into an inlet, and thus opening it to commerce as far as Troy (about 150 M.), up to which point the river is tidal and, therefore, partly salt. The Hudson extends above Troy for 150 M. farther, but navigation is interrupted by shallows and swift currents. Below Troy the fall is only five feet in a distance of 145 M. This lower, navigable portion of the Hudson was the only feasible route through the Atlantic highlands, and in consequence it has been one of the most significant factors in the development of the United States. New York City likewise owes its phenomenal development largely to this great highway of commerce. The invention and successful operation of the steamboat, the first line of which was established on the Hudson by Fulton in 1807, gave early impetus to the importance of N.Y.C., and the building of the Hudson River R.R., one of the first successful railways, now a part of the New York Central Lines, and the opening of the Erie Canal (1825) connecting the Hudson with the Great Lakes and the far interior, were among other contributory factors in the city's growth. 15 M. YONKERS, Pop. 100,226. (Train 51 passes 8:56a; No. 3, 9:15a; No. 41, 1:29p; No. 25, 3:11p; No. 19, 5:59p. Eastbound No. 6 passes 8:52a; No. 26, 9:12a; No. 16, 3:31p, No. 22, 4:56p.)